


ghosts for the living

by cloudsleeper



Category: Astral Chain (Video Game)
Genre: Astral Chain Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-11-02 12:22:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20744768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudsleeper/pseuds/cloudsleeper
Summary: She feels sick to her stomach."I didn't ask any of you to do this for me."(the protagonist finds herself caught between her past and future.)





	ghosts for the living

She tugs on the chain with all of her weight, desperate to change the course of her Legion's arrow.

The Legion, ever steadfast, draws its bow at her twin.

She pulls the chain again. Both her hands grip the metal so tightly she feels her nails cutting into her palms.

No.

This couldn't be happening.

She'd been through hell and back. They _both_ had. And now he had to sacrifice himself to save the world? What happened to justice? Good defeats evil and everyone lives happily ever after? There has to be another way, she tells herself. _There has to._

She turns to her brother. He's wearing a resigned smile. Brave. Accepting.

It shreds her heart to pieces.

The arrow flies.

\--- 

She stirs. There's a familiar beeping of a heart monitor and the piercing smell of antiseptics permeates the air.

The infirmary, she thinks to herself. Her head hurts. What had happened?

"Hey there," a voice says. It's tinged with worry and frayed with static. Hal. "You've been out for only a few days. As resilient as ever! Anyways, I'm so glad you're okay. How are you feeling?"

She opens her eyes, vision fuzzy. The bright yellow drone, covered in colorful decals and stickers, hovers over her in concern (also quite literally, she thinks to herself).

The first question that comes to her mind makes its way onto her lips.

"Where's Akira?" Her voice is rusty from disuse.

A moment of silence pervades the unit.

"He's...in the Command Room. Probably with the others." Hal's voice trails off. Because she's known Hal for a while, her ears pick up both uncertainty and guilt - slight changes in intonation that leak through his voice. She wonders at this.

"You should probably see for yourself." Hal continues. His voice becomes quieter and cracks a little bit. "Just..." The drone hovers a few feet away from her. "Be ready for anything."

But the fact that Akira's alive at all sends a wave of relief outwards through her fingertips.

She lets out an exhale she had been unconsciously holding.

He's okay. We're both okay.

She tries to get up from the bed; her limbs haven't been this sore since her younger days of training exercises as a rookie cop. It takes her a few minutes to get her legs standing firmly on the ground. She makes her way to the command room, yellow drone trailing (with an unusual amount of silence) behind her.

After what seems to be the longest half hour of her entire life, she arrives at the Command Room. It's mostly empty, except for a select few. There's Brenda, Olive, Jin, and - her eyes catches sight of a familiar mess of dark brown, short and tousled hair.

She can recognize her twin's back anywhere. Her fatigue instantly disappears, replaced by joy.

Akira is alive. He's right in front of her. She breaks into a sprint past the monitors.

Seven meters. Six. Five four three two one - and the remaining gap between her and her unsuspecting sibling disappears completely as she tackles him into a tight hug. He turns around at the very last second.

The young woman realizes right as she's tackling him that this wasn't the best idea she's had. He was probably just as injured as she was, if not more.

She waits for both of them to hit the ground in a tangled mess -

He catches her, easily.

She blinks once, puzzled.

Hadn't he been hurt?

"Woah there. Take it easy with the hug. Weren't you still supposed to be recovering?" Akira's voice is amused and warm.

Weren't you? She thinks to herself, but the niggling thought is brief. She casts it away.

"Looks like you've recovered," Brenda says, on their right. "It's good to see you up and about."

Olive jumps in. "We're uh, discussing some evaluation cases for your brother. There's one in Maison Forest, which should be easy enough."

Maison Forest. She'd been surreptitiously adopting more stray cats for the safehouse. Maybe it would be good for both of them to visit. For old time's sake. She'd stocked up on quality cat food, too. The expensive kind.

"I can go too," she pipes up, and all heads turn towards her. She elbows Akira. "There are some friends that Akira and I need to check up on at the safehouse."

"Safehouse?" Her twin echoes. "What friends are you talking about?"

She turns to him, prepared to laugh at his silly attempt of a cover-up. He really was too serious about keeping this a secret. The safehouse itself was near impossible to find, unless one knew how to navigate the twisting alleyways.

But her sibling's eyes show only blank puzzlement.

"You're joking," she says, and he frowns at her.

"I'm not. Seriously, what friends?" He's starting to sound a little irritated. She looks intently at her twin's face for the first time since the battle against Noah.

The young woman finds an undoubtable familiarity in his expression. And yet.

Something is off.

There are no shadows of old exhaustion beneath his eyes, no residual anger in the set of his jaw, no imprints of weariness in his brow.

And his wounds. She had seen the Legion's arrow pierce straight through his chest. Their medical technology was top of the line, certainly. But treatment this severe would definitely take more than a few days.

She catches Olive, Brenda, and Jin exchanging glances in the background. What's going on?

"Akira, could you wait for a couple minutes in the Break Room?" Jin asks. "Maybe, meanwhile, get me an extra-bitter coffee. And some sugars to go along with it."

The young man steps out, looking a bit disgruntled.

They watch him leave. When he is out of their lines of sight, Brenda takes a deep breath.

"We need to talk."

\---

She feels sick to her stomach.

"I didn't ask any of you to do this for me." The words burst forth like daggers, sharp and bitter. Her companions standing before her each wear varying degrees of hurt on their faces. Brenda pales, and looks away. Beside her, Olive hugs herself tightly, and Jin presses his lips together.

The Akira in the waiting room was a clone made by Yoseph.

A clone, holding her twin's memories.

While she had been hospitalized, Jin had found a clone among the wreckage. Because they were running out of time, a decision amongst the three had led to Brenda transplanting memories from her brother's legion into this clone's body.

The memories were imperfect, Brenda had explained, and so this Akira only had a limited recollection of the past. So he could remember all but few minor things.

Minor things.

She would laugh, if she wasn't so horrified.

It feels like they're spitting on his grave. A grave that, she realizes, probably no one has even made.

Her chest tightens and a chilly anger roils in her gut.

"I need some air."

She turns her back to them, prepared to leave. Brenda puts a hand on her shoulder.

"Wait. Just to inform you, it would be best if you did not tell Akira. He isn't aware of this, and I don't know how he'll take it." The physician's tone is cautious and almost apologetic.

The young woman shrugs the hand off her shoulder. She walks stiffly away from the debriefing room, and it takes every ounce of her training to not run from the scene.

As she rounds the hall, she hears Akira's footsteps coming towards her. He's on his way back. The clone's footsteps, she corrects herself.

She knows it's not his fault - far from it - but she can't bring herself to respond when he greets her in the hallway.

She needs to get out of here.

\---

It's been at least a few weeks. She hasn't really been keeping track, honestly.

She'd decided to take a self-proclaimed leave of absence, complete with a more professionally written version of 'don't look for me or else' left very conspicuously on Brenda's desk.

She was presently spending her time either clearing out stray chimeras around Hal's hideout or feeding the cats at her dad's safehouse.

Hal had made a sound of sympathy, and given her a cup of hot chocolate when she first arrived.

"Stay here as long as you like," his hologram had said. "If you want, I'll reconfigure the Neuron tracking system so you can go off the grid for now - if you need some privacy. And," the drone fluttered about. "I-If you want to talk. I'm here. I mean, I'm not that great at saying comforting things. So it might just be you. Talking at me. But the option's open."

She had gratefully accepted the mug of hot chocolate and taken up temporary residence in one of the free rooms.

She's at the safehouse today. Her legs are crossed on the worn leather couch and a stray cat purrs in her lap. This particular one had never warmed up to her in the past, even after several cans of wild salmon and halibut that very nearly emptied her savings.

But when she'd shown up a few weeks ago, it had become unusually friendly - headbutts, loud purring (the sound very nearly rivaling her motorcycle engine).

This entire place feels like a soft blanket. It's comforting, what with the soft light filtering in through the misted windows, and smell of slightly aged leather.

It reminds her of her dad.

"Dad," she murmurs to herself. "I wish you were here."

She doesn't know what to do with herself or what to make of this situation. What would Akira want?

She remembers his anger, his shock, his hurt upon seeing the clones before him. 

He had only wished to be himself. Just himself.

And now, even in death, he couldn't have that.

A dull pain tears through her chest. The cat meows up at her.

She blinks. There are fat droplets of water on the cat's orange coat, and she touches her hand to her cheek. It comes off wet.

"Don't tell anyone you saw that," she tells the cat.

"I won't," a familiar voice says.

She looks up, shaken. Even through blurry eyes, she knows it's Akira's clone standing at the door. He's in casual garb - police gear nowhere be seen. How lost was she in her thoughts to not even notice the sound of the door opening?

"Hey." His voice is tentative.

He's wearing an expression of uncertainty, one Akira rarely showed the public or even showed her. Her sibling always wanted to be the older twin. He'd given himself the responsibility of looking after her, and therefore thought he'd had to hide any kind of weakness from the world.

_You're hardly older, he had complained (this had been a frequent occurrence when they were kids). _

_By twelve minutes, she'd always respond in turn, tone light. _

_I'm emotionally older, he insisted. That was usually when Dad usually stepped in, with a roll of his eyes and an olive branch consisting of assorted Rastner's ice cream. _

She's brought away from her memories by the sound of meowing. Some of the cats are approaching him rather fervently. One of them, a tortoiseshell, leaps boldly onto his shoulder. He gives it an uncertain pat.

"Looks like they recognize this body," he says. She blinks. Did he just-

He gives her a rueful smile.

"Mind if I sit down next to you?"

She swallows, and nods. Akira- the clone - takes a seat on the other couch. He's decided to sit a bit far away, she notes. His posture is tense. He takes a deep breath. She waits.

"I know I'm not the original Akira." He begins, his voice heavy.

She bites her lip. Her brother had always been similarly straightforward with his thoughts.

"How did you find out?" The question comes forth, and he shrugs.

"Your friend Hal," he says. "I was looking around for you nearly everywhere. No one in headquarters would tell me where you went or why you'd decided to leave. His yellow drone came up to me when I was still looking for you - and he told me everything. To make things right, he said." The young man looks away from her.

He looks tired.

"The next step was finding you. You had mentioned a safehouse somewhere in Maison Forest and well, I wandered here out of luck."

She wonders, briefly, if it really had been only a lucky guess.

"I'm sorry." She freezes at his words. He continues, avoiding her gaze. "I didn't know. It - no, I - must have hurt you a lot. You might not think of me as your family, but I..." He bows his head, shoulders hunched.

Sorry for what? Existing? There's a sensation of guilt tugging at her. Guilt for feeling anger. At the same time, she thinks most of her feelings are warranted.

What would Dad say? What would Akira want her to do?

_"Always too nice...Sister." _

She remembers his last words to her, when she'd chosen not to take his life. No. Chosen isn't the right word, she thinks. There hadn't really been a choice to make.

She'd never been a hero. Just a girl who was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Akira's gone, and you would never be him. Not truly." Her voice is quiet. He flinches at her words. She doesn't think she'll be able to forgive the decision they'd all made. Not for a while, at least.

There's a moment of silence, interspersed with plaintive meowing. One of the cats is a glutton, she thinks.

"But," she continues, and he looks up. His eyebrows are drawn together and he seems to be preparing for the worst.

"You're still you. Living, breathing, here." She clenches her fist at her lap. "So I hope that you can live on. I will, too."

"And," she clears her throat.

She feels like she's going to cry again if she thinks too hard right now. " We'll work from there."

She gives him a smile. It's small, but seems to instill a great deal of relief into the young man.

"That," he says, his voice tight. "That sounds good."

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a more satisfying conclusion after reaching the end of the game... this is so self indulgent but i have mixed feelings right now about the ending


End file.
